DBSI's 71-year-old former corporate general counsel serving a five-year prison sentence for his role in a Ponzi scheme disguised as a real estate company will have to wait and see if the Bureau of Prisons finalizes its agreement to release him to home confinement amid the pandemic, a federal judge in Idaho said Thursday.

A Chinese manufacturing company produced and exported nearly half a million misbranded and defective masks to the United States as the country scrambled to equip its medical workers with personal protective equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.

The Second Circuit on Friday agreed to stay a lower court's ruling granting bail to two attorneys charged over an alleged Molotov cocktail attack on a New York City Police Department vehicle amid recent protests while the government's appeal plays out, and both lawyers were taken into custody by U.S. marshals.

A former associate of Michael Flynn asked a D.C. federal judge Friday for permission to file an amicus brief in support of the government's bid to drop the one-time Trump administration national security adviser's prosecution, saying a dismissed Virginia criminal case he's connected to was initially used to force Flynn to reach a plea deal.

The Fifth Circuit on Friday rejected Mississippi inmates' effort to revive their legal battle against prison phone service provider Global Tel Link over claims the company bribed top brass in the state's correctional system to get away with charging prison callers exorbitant fees.

The NCAA on Friday banned Oklahoma State University from the men's college basketball tournament for one year and hit a former assistant basketball coach with a 10-year show-cause penalty after the coach pled guilty to accepting bribes in the federal college basketball corruption probe.

A Michigan federal judge disclosed in a farewell letter Thursday to the attorneys in one of her cases that she's stepping down, at least temporarily, for cancer treatment after 38 years on the state and federal bench.

In the last week or so, the Internet Archive's library service came under fire, a vodka company that started making hand sanitizer sought to defend its brand name, a convicted intellectual property thief asked to be let out early over the pandemic, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office launched a new resource center.

A bipartisan Senate quartet has proposed changes to the Paycheck Protection Program to ensure access for small-business owners who currently can be blocked from the forgivable pandemic-relief loans because of criminal records ranging from any pending charges and past felony convictions to probation and pretrial diversion.

Epstein Becker has poached a U.S. Food and Drug Administration law expert from Hogan Lovells, Clyde & Co. nabbed two health care partners across the pond and Prevail Therapeutics hired away an in-house lawyer from Allergan, headlining Law360's latest roundup of personnel moves in the health care and life sciences arena.

The past week in London has seen a Chinese billionaire dissident launch another legal fight with UBS AG, a demolition company lodge a negligence claim against Hiscox and an asbestos solutions provider and an airport sim card seller target telecommunications giant Vodafone. Here, Law360 looks at those and other new claims in the U.K.

Settlement objectors in class and derivative actions may receive attorney fees for improving deals in ways beyond the dollars and cents, the Third Circuit said Thursday in a precedential ruling that the former general counsel of a body armor business deserves fees with no strings attached for such an objection.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission unanimously approved a final rule on Thursday that closes a loophole that allowed "bad actors" barred under the Commodity Exchange Act to manage people's money.

Senate Republicans have escalated their inquiries into the origins of the special counsel's probe into Russia's election interference and possible Trump campaign ties, with two key committees preparing to subpoena central figures.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday blocked a district court order forcing the Bureau of Prisons to move more than 120 medically vulnerable inmates from a federal prison in Ohio on Friday in response to the facility's deadly COVID-19 outbreak, giving the Sixth Circuit time to rule on the government's appeal.

A New York state court judge on Thursday denied a demand to free hundreds of people arrested amid protests and looting in New York City, accepting the NYPD's argument that the more than 24-hour delays to release people are caused by "a crisis within a crisis" and not malice.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a powerful Iowa Republican and longtime advocate for government watchdogs, said Thursday that he would block two nominees of President Donald Trump's until he received explanations for the recent firing of several inspectors general.

A New York federal judge on Thursday set a January trial date for former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng on charges stemming from a purported $2.7 billion fraud on Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it was awarding nearly $50 million to a whistleblower — its largest-ever sum to a single person — in this case someone who gave firsthand information about a company's misconduct that resulted in a large amount of money returned to harmed investors.

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to toss the convictions of two New Jersey officials in the Bridgegate scandal could provide three men convicted in the NCAA basketball corruption probe a lifeline in overturning their convictions at the Second Circuit, experts say.

A trio of Texas judges said Wednesday they're worried about how jury trials will recover from the coronavirus pandemic, citing concerns from the effect on the overall jury pool to how face masks will impact a fundamental task of courts and trial attorneys — assessing juror and witness credibility.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against a purported internet investment adviser on Wednesday for failing to turn over its books while touting investment opportunities related to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.

Former Bumble Bee CEO Chris Lischewski urged a California federal judge Wednesday to reject prosecutors' request for a 10-year prison sentence for his role in fixing the price of tuna, arguing that there was no evidence he led the conspiracy, obstructed justice or caused losses and that he should get no more than 10 months.

Capital One is the latest company ordered by a U.S. court to disclose a consultant's analysis of a massive data breach, in a potential boon for consumers but a troubling development for businesses aiming to talk frankly about breaches without fear of legal repercussions.

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Expert Analysis

Law firms in today's financial crisis may be looking at nontraditional arrangements such as portfolio funding or factoring to provide liquidity and cash support, but firms must first consider lawsuits brought against Pierce Bainbridge and other recent developments, says Katherine Toomey at Lewis Baach.

Directors of Delaware corporation boards should consider the responsibilities established in Caremark as a framework for getting sufficiently involved in COVID-19 decision-making, both to help their corporations navigate this difficult period and to defend against potential duty to monitor claims, say attorneys at Boies Schiller.

The Minnesota Supreme Court's Maslowski v. Prospect Funding Partners decision this week reaffirms that the doctrine of champerty is archaic, impedes important litigation finance activity, and should be abolished in the handful of states where it remains alive, says Andrew Cohen at Burford Capital.

Last month's "Bridgegate" decision represents the latest remarkable chapter in a 20-year U.S. Supreme Court arc drastically narrowing prosecutors' ability to use previously flexible fraud statutes as tools to curtail putative public corruption by government officials, say Jason Halperin and David Drew at Mintz.

A significant challenge in practicing law remotely is the use and handling of documents without paper, because common digital tools such as email or even secure file transfer applications are problematic, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

Prosecutors and forward-looking companies should carefully attend to new U.S. Department of Justice guidance issued Monday, which brings changes to such core compliance areas as the value of data, the evolution of compliance programs, and foreign legal considerations, say Alejandra Montenegro Almonte and Ann Sultan at Miller & Chevalier.

As companies and their counsel prepare for enforcement by the newly confirmed special inspector general for pandemic recovery responsible for overseeing CARES Act funds, Christy Goldsmith Romero, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, shares how her office has investigated fraud, waste and abuse of federal relief funds following the 2008 financial crisis.

The legal industry is uniquely positioned, and indeed obligated, to respond to the racial disparities made clear by the recent killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but lawyers must be willing to be uncomfortable, says Tiffani Lee at Holland & Knight.

A close look at the life experiences unique to baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and others can offer valuable insight into how the pandemic could shape jurors' opinions in very different ways depending on their birth cohort, say trial consultants at JuryScope.

A New York bankruptcy judge's recent opinion in Firestone Diamond represents a comprehensive treatment of the Bankruptcy Code Section 502(d) disallowance taint and decisively rejects, for the first time in the Southern District of New York, the long-standing and widely criticized Enron holding, say attorneys at Cadwalader.

A recent split between Pennsylvania and Georgia federal courts over whether a plaintiff suing a hotel for benefiting from a venture that it should have known engaged in sex trafficking must plausibly allege the hotel violated the federal criminal trafficking law has important implications for both sex trafficking survivors and the hospitality industry, says David Bouchard at Finch McCranie.

Every trial lawyer knows that Amy Cooper's compelling 911 call from Central Park, although hearsay, could be played to a jury at trial to bolster witness trial testimony, highlighting the fact that the Federal Rules of Evidence contain numerous pathways for prosecutors to introduce all types of evidence that would otherwise be excludable, says attorney John Lauro.

One mistake that attorneys commonly make when presenting a case to a third-party funder is focusing almost exclusively on liability and giving short shrift to the damages analysis — resulting in an aspirational damages estimate that falls apart under scrutiny, say Cindy Ahn and Justin Maleson at Longford Capital and Casey Grabenstein at Saul Ewing.